Current Students

Contact Information

Fall 2010

Professor Tom Evitts received the 2010 Outstanding
Contribution to Mathematics Education Award from the Pennsylvania
Council of Teachers of Mathematics in Camp Hill, PA.

The annual meeting of the Pennsylvania Council of Teachers of Mathematics in Camp Hill, PA was attended by Professors Lance Bryant, Doug Ensley, Tom Evitts, Ben Galluzo, Debbie Gochenaur, Dave Kennedy, Mike Long, and Luis Melara
as well as a large number of SU students. The SU faculty members were
heavily involve in the organization of the meeting, with the following
roles:

Dr. Ensley and Dr. Evitts on the Program Committee

Dr. Gochenaur as Registration Co-chair and Co-chair of the Early Career Teachers' Day program

Dr. Kennedy as Program Committee Chair

Dr. Long as General Program Co-chair and Co-chair of Pre-Service Teachers' Day program

As part of the PCTM meeting program...

Dr. Bryant presented the session, "Jobs, Family, Budgets and Taxes!"

Dr. Ensley gave the presentation, "FAQ's for Future Teachers" for the Pre-Service Teachers' Day.

Professor Galluzzo presented the session, "Model This!"

Dr. Gochenaur presented the session, "Changing the World One Student Teacher at a Time"

Dr. Long presented the session, "The Probability of The Price is Right"

Dr. Melara was a featured Spotlight Speaker with the presentation, "Mathematics, Calculators and Computing"

SU students Ryan Long and Dan White presented the session, "Two Rich Problems: A Whole Lot of Math"

Professors Tom Evitts, Dave Kennedy, and Mike Long attended the NCTM Regional Meeting in Denver, Colorado on October 7 and 8. At this conference, Dr. Evitts presented the workshop, "Probability Experiments on a Calculator? No Dice!", Dr. Kennedy presented the session, "Four Ways to Make a Sierpinski Gasket Appear," and Dr. Long presented the session "Pop-Culture Probability" and the workshop "The Thrill of the Calculus of Roller Coasters."

Professors Tom Evitts and Dave Kennedy attended the NCTM Regional Meeting in Baltimore, Maryland on October 14 and 15. At this conference, Dr. Evitts presented the workshop, "Probability Experiments on a Calculator? No Dice!" and Dr. Kennedy presented the session, "Four Ways to Make a Sierpinski Gasket Appear."

Professor Ben Galluzzo was the event director for the second
annual Cumberland Valley Math Modeling Challenge held at Shippensburg
University on September 25 and 26, 2010. Ten teams of three students
each from seven colleges worked for 24 hours using their math skills to
solve real-world problems. At the conclusion of the contest, all teams
successfully submitted solutions in written and oral forms, turning in a
one-page summary of their findings and giving a ten-minute presentation
explaining their results. The student participants chose "Going Up?"
the Kutztown team's presentation on efficient elevator design for tall
buildings as the contest winning solution. The team from the U.S.
Military Academy at West Point was awarded "outstanding participant"
designation for their paper describing a long-term plan to return the
U.S. Postal Service to profitability. Professors Paul Taylor, Lance Bryant, Doug Ensley, Tom Crochunis, and Shannon Mortimore assisted in running the event.

Summer 2010

Professors Doug Ensley, Ben Galluzzo, Marc Renault and Paul Taylor, as well as SU student Josh Ide, attended the Mathematical Association of America's annual summer meeting in Pittsburgh. At this meeting Professor Galluzzo presented the paper, "Bridges from Math to English," Dr. Taylor presented the paper, "Examples of Data Collection Using Clickers," Dr. Renault presented the paper, "GeoGebra and the Fermat-Torricelli Point," and Josh Ide
presented the paper, "Examining General Fibonacci Sequences Modulo a
Prime," based on an undergraduate research project he has been working
on with Dr. Renault.

Professor Luis Melara and SU student Josh Ide attended the annual summer meeting of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics in Pittsburgh.

Professor Lance Bryant published the paper, "Goto Numbers of
a Numerical Semigroup Ring and the Gorensteiness of Associated Graded
Rings," in the refereed journal, Communications in Algebra (Volume 38, Issue 6 June 2010).

Professor James Hamblin's textbook "Math for Liberal
Studies" was published during the summer of 2010. The book features
three major units describing many real-world applications of
mathematics, and includes interactive online exercises and PowerPoint
lectures.

Professor Doug Ensley chaired a grant review panel for the
National Science Foundation program Transforming Undergraduate Education
in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics.

Spring 2010

Professor Lance Bryant gave a presentation entitled, "Numerical Semigroups and One-Dimensional Rings," for the CUNY Graduate Center in New York.

Professor Doug Ensley gave a keynote address entitled, "A
recurring theme in the mathematics of sports," for the annual meeting of
the Allegheny Mountain Section of the Mathematical Association of
America, held at the University of Pittsburgh -- Johnstown. At that same
meeting, Dr. Ensley led the professional development workshop,
"Discrete Mathematics: Puzzles, Patterns and Proof," for a group of new
college faculty members.

Professor Lance Bryant gave a presentation entitled, "Sums
of Squares and Unique Factorization: An Automathographical Tale," for
the Mathematics Department Colloquium at Gettysburg College.

Professor Ben Galluzzo gave a presentation entitled, "Water,
water, everywhere, but is it safe to drink?" on Friday, March 26, 2010
at Villanova University through their Department of Mathematical
Sciences.

Professor Luis Melara served as local organizer for the SIAM/MAA Regional Student Applied Mathematics Conference held on the SU campus on March 20.

Professors Tom Evitts and Dave Kennedy and student Mike Conner traveled to the annual meeting of the West Virginia Council of Teachers of Mathematics on Saturday, March 20. At this meeting, Dr. Evitts gave the presentation, "Landmarks and Vistas: A Guide to Mathematical Sightseeing," Dr. Kennedy gave the presentation, "Four Ways to Make a Sierpinski Gasket Appear," and Mike Conner presented (with Dr. Kennedy), "The Hunter in the Tree: The Math of Bow Hunting."

Professor Lenny Jones gave a talk entitled, "Coverings: Open
Questions and Applications," for the Mathematics Department Colloquium
at the National Taiwan Normal University in Taipei.

Professors Lance Bryant, Ji Young Choi, Doug Ensley, James Hamblin, Mike Long, and Marc Renault, performed as the band, The Remainders, for the APSCUF/SU-sponsored, Ship Shines for Haiti. Click here to see the video of the performance.

Professors Tom Evitts and Dave Kennedy attended the annual meeting of the Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators in Irvine, CA. At this conference, Dr. Evitts
attended training to become an NCATE-NCTM reviewer, and Dr. Kennedy
co-presented (with the University of Michigan's Judith Jacobs, Deborah
Ball, Hy Bass, and others) the session, "Creating Materials for Use by
Other Mathematics Teacher Educators."

Mathematics major Kelly Toppin is featured on the front page of www.ship.edu.

Professors Ji Young Choi, Winston Crawley, Doug Ensley, Ben
Galluzzo, Deborah Gochenaur, James Hamblin, Lenny Jones, Kate McGivney,
Luis Melara, Kim Presser, and Marc Renault, and undergraduate student
Kelly Toppin, attended the 2010 Joint Mathematics Meetings in San
Francisco. This meeting is a national conference for several mathematics
organizations, including the American Mathematical Society (AMS), the
Mathematical Association of America (MAA), and the Society for
Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM).

Dr. Choi presented at talk entitled, "Multi-restrained Stirling numbers," as part of the AMS Session on Discrete Mathematics.

Dr. Crawley presented a talk entitled, "Assessment: If It
Ain't Useful, Don't Do It," as part of the MAA Session on How Assessment
Results Changed Our Program. In addition, he and Dr. Presser
co-organized the MAA Session on Developmental Mathematics Education:
Helping Under-Prepared Students Transition to College-Level Mathematics.

Dr. Ensley presented a talk entitled, "Applets for Discovery
and Assessment in Math for Liberal Studies," as part of the MAA Session
on Mathlets for Teaching and Learning Mathematics. In addition, Dr.
Ensley was a co-presenter (with Joe Gallian of U. of Minn. - Duluth) for
the talk entitled, "Mathematics Awareness Month 2010: Mathematics and
Sports," as part of the MAA Session on Mathematics and Sports.

Dr. Galluzzo presented a talk entitled, "Click and Tell," as part of the MAA General Contributed Paper Session.

Dr. Gochenaur presented a talk entitled, "Reaching the
Unreachable: Pulling Students Kicking and Screaming into a Mathematical
Vortex Where They Transform to Develop Mathematical Eyes through
Innovative Approaches and Activities," as part of the MAA Session on
Mathematics Courses for the Liberal Arts Students.

Dr. Hamblin presented a talk entitled, "Designing a 'Math
for Liberal Studies' Course," as part of the MAA Session on Mathematics
Courses for the Liberal Arts Students.

Dr. Jones presented a talk entitled, "Generalizing a Theorem
of Sierpiński Using Lucas Sequences," as part of the AMS Session on
Number Theory. In addition, Dr. Jones was co-author with SU alumnus Josh
Harrington on the paper, "Special Sierpiński Numbers," which was
presented by SU alumna Dr. Carrie Finch of Washington and Lee
University.

Dr. McGivney presented a talk entitled, "Making Sense of
Sampling Distributions: Activities for an Introductory Statistics
Course," as part of the MAA General Contributed Paper Session

Dr. Melara presented a talk entitled, "An Estimate of The
Radius of an Attraction Ball for TV-Minimization Problems in Image
Denoising," as part of the AMS Session on Optimization and Control

Dr. Presser presented a talk entitled, "Developmental
Mathematics and Assessment: Where have we come from? Where are we now?
Where are we going?" as part of the MAA Session on Developmental
Mathematics Education: Helping Under-Prepared Students Transition to
College-Level Mathematics

Dr. Renault assisted Mike May of St. Louis University with
the four-hour MAA minicourse, "Using GeoGebra to create activities and
applets for visualization and exploration.

Kelly Toppin presented the paper, "On Some Conjectures
Concerning Groups With Perfect Order Subsets," co-authored with Dr.
Jones, in the AMS Session on Group Theory.

Also spotted at the San Francisco meeting was SU alumna Judith Canner,
who will be finishing her Ph.D. from North Carolina State University
this year. At the meetings soon-to-be-Doctor Canner presented the paper,
"The consequences of ant behavior for the spatial population dynamics
of a southern wildflower," as part of the AMS Session on Biomathematics.

Dr. Lenny Jones was a Visiting Fellow at the University of
Western Sydney from January 1 to January 13. This fellowship was funded
completely by the University of Western Sydney.

Dr. Doug Ensley had the paper, "A Hands-On Approach to Proof
and Abstraction," appear in the December 2009 edition of inroads, the
quarterly bulletin of the Association for Computing Machinery's Special
Interest Group on Computer Science Education.